Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

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If You do this, Will You Improve Your Happiness?

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“Americans are devoted to the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, research shows that many of us don’t actually know what makes us happy, so we end up pursuing the wrong things,” writes Dr. Shlomo Benartzi, professor and co-head of the behavioral decision-making group at UCLA Anderson School of Management.

One way to help your happiness is to do a test. It’s called A/B testing.

I’m familiar with A/B testing with our websites. Change a couple of words in the title of a piece and it’s shocking what a difference it can make in reader interest.

As Dr. Benartzi points out:

In research I’ve conducted with Hal Hershfield at UCLA and Steve Shu at City University of London, we used A/B tests to experiment with different versions of the same basic financial offer. Users of a saving app were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The first group was asked if they would like to save $5 a day, while the second group was asked if they would like to save $150 a month. (The amounts are essentially equivalent.) Although we had predicted that the $5 a day question would perform slightly better—it made saving seem less painful and intimidating—I was shocked by how much better it did: Those users given the $5 question were four times as likely to sign up.

Your takeaway? Try and A/B test certain areas of your life, such as where you will retire. Try living in your chosen retirement destination by renting for a season. Pretend that’s where you live, and then draw up your plans from there. Doing this can help you avoid costly mistakes and guarantee the decision you make is the right one for you and your family.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com